Greek and Roman
The ancient Mediterranean world in sculpture, pottery, jewellery, and glass. The Parthenon sculptures, the Portland Vase, and thousands of objects from Greece, Rome, Cyprus, and the wider classical world.
The objects that taught the West to picture itself.
he balanced body, the columned temple, the painted myth on a clay pot: the forms invented around the ancient Mediterranean became the grammar European art would speak, and argue with, for the next two thousand years.
Look closely and the idealized surface complicates: the Parthenon sculptures still carry the dispute over where they belong; the Portland Vase, the marks of its own shattering and repair. Not serene marbles but contested objects — beautiful, and unresolved.
